The show reached a pinnacle with fantastic season one finale 'Sacrifice' - which saw Colin Donnell's Tommy die a hero - and, in its season two debut, it shows no signs of scaling things back.

In fact, it pushes itself even further, with glorious results - 'City of Heroes' is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best episode of Arrow yet.

Cate Cameron

Our return to Starling City doesn't avoid or gloss over the long-reaching consequences of last season's finale - both the destruction of the Glades and Tommy's death cast a long shadow.

The loss of his friend forces Oliver (Stephen Amell) to question his rather frivolous approach to violence, as does the nature of this week's threat - the emergence of a bloodthirsty gang of imitators 'inspired' by the vigilante who want justice for what happened to the city's slums.

Oliver's wanton slaughter of crooks was something that we - and many of the characters on the show - had just come to accept, but the accepted 'truth' that, for Ollie, it's kill-or-be-killed is challenged here.

Cate Cameron

Tommy's death could've been just an attention-grabbing stunt, but in fact serves as a crucial device, allowing Arrow to address a couple of season one's biggest problems - that our 'hero' was often a shade too dark to be truly likeable and that the plot device of Robert Queen's list often led the show into routine procedural territory.

Here, Oliver pleasingly adopts a more heroic stance - I'll admit to watching that superb fan-pleaser of a final scene more than once - and the list is banished for good, hopefully allowing the show to explore a more serialised structure in future.

The Ollie / Diggle / Felicity dynamic is re-established from the off and it again becomes immediately clear just how vital this three-way relationship is to the show. Both Emily Bett Rickards and David Ramsey have made themselves utterly indispensable at this point.

Cate Cameron

And while last year Arrow was guilty of wasting Willa Holland, it feels like the writers have noticed - Thea practically gets more to do in 'City of Heroes' than she did all last season. Not only is Ollie's little sis now in charge of his old club, but she finally gets a proper episodic emotional arc, with her kidnap forcing her to reassess what's important in life and forgive her jailed mother.

New recruit and cult favourite Summer Glau doesn't get an enormous amount to do in her first week, it's true, but the Firefly actress could do this whole 'sexy, cold and slightly alien' routine in her sleep and her frosty dynamic with Oliver is great fun. I look forward to more from Isabel Rochev in the coming weeks.

Action, meanwhile, has always been one of Arrow's strengths - season one boasted some of the most impressive TV fight scenes in recent memory.

Here, the show raises the bar still further - from the siege on the mayor, to Oliver's daring escape from a business meeting-gone-bad, to a gun-toting Roy taking on the Hoods - 'City of Heroes' is absolutely packed with inventive action sequences - better yet, sequences that occur naturally as part of the narrative and don't feel forced for the sake of introducing some random peril.

'City of Heroes' is an Arrow that's slicker, funnier, more confident and even more action-packed than it was before. The show's impressive evolution continues apace and I can't wait to see what lies in store in the weeks - and let's hope years - to come.

5

ArrowHeads!
- The unsung hero of Arrow? That would be composer Blake Neely - his thrilling score never fails to set the heart racing. In the scene where Oliver returns to his 'Arrow-Cave' for the first time and that pulsing track kicks in, I was fist-pumping like New Girl's Nick Miller.
- Who else was genuinely surprised when Walter turned out to be Oliver's benefactor? It's great to see Colin Salmon back on the show in a meaningful role.
- Laurel (Katie Cassidy) is still a bit of a self-righteous cold fish, but she works better as Oliver's friend than as his love interest, so let's hope that state of affairs remains unchanged.
- Black Canary! The debut of Starling City's newest vigilante might've had more impact if it'd been held back a week, but I'm definitely intrigued to see how she'll play into Roy's own journey towards becoming a costumed crime-fighter.
- Olicity moment of the week goes to "You're really sweaty!" - though her confession about enjoying his salmon-laddering comes a close second.

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